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Photographers on the Front Lines of the Great War

In 1914, as the outbreak of  World War I brought mass slaughter to Europe’s battlefields, photojournalism evolved rapidly in the muddy trenches, where 19th century tactics met 20th century weapons. Machine guns, airplanes, tanks, flamethrowers, poisonous gas and submarines were widely used for the first time against doomed troops that were sent by their generals into frontal attacks that left millions dead.

This unimaginable carnage was witnessed by photographers who for the first time got close enough to the front to document combat, as well as scenes of soldiers at rest and at play.

“The First World War is the conflict in which the concept of documentary truth first evolved,” said Hilary Roberts, the photography curator at the  Imperial War Museums  in London and a co-author of “ The Great War: A Photographic Narrative. ” “Prior to that, because of the scarcity of press photography in general, picture desk editors from newspapers were quite happy to use photographs which were merely representative or illustrative of a point rather than showing a genuine event itself.”

Photography had been in its infancy during the Crimean War in the 1850s and the Civil War in the 1860s, requiring long exposures on plates that had to be developed immediately in huge, mobile darkrooms. The cameras were large and bulky, requiring photographers to shoot landscapes or, if photographing people, to pose them. Photographers were forced to record war before and after battles, and combat was impossible to cover.

By the start of World War I, smaller cameras and film formats let professional photographers make images quickly and under difficult light. Eastman Kodak introduced the Brownie in 1900, popularizing amateur photography. The Vest Pocket Kodak , introduced in 1912, soon became the most popular camera carried by soldiers. Although forbidden by some militaries, including Britain’s, many soldiers took these cameras to the front .

“Photography seems to have played a substantial role in the personal life of soldiers,” said Bodo von Dewitz, an expert on photography during World War I, who recently retired as curator of photography at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. “It made them proud that they could inform their families with pictures and, more importantly, to document their heroic participation in this war. After 1916, there were strict rules of what to show and what not. But the pictures from the front, sent by soldiers to their families, could not be controlled that much.”

Independent photographers were kept far from the front lines, creating a problem for newspapers whose circulation depended on having pictures to illustrate dispatches from the war.

“It was a terribly important element for them when professional press photographs became unavailable in 1914,” Ms. Roberts said. “The newspapers of every nation were in a quandary and constantly asserting pressure on the authorities to deal with this situation.”

The solution reached by the authorities was to appoint official photographers, most of whom had worked for newspapers before joining the military. They used medium-format cameras that produced small glass-plate negatives – the Leica, which popularized the 35-millimeter film format, was still 10 years from being released to the public. The first photographer appointed by Britain was Ernest Brooks, whose debut assignment was to cover the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, a failed attempt by the Allied powers to capture the Ottoman capital, Constantinople.

Mr. Brooks had no reservations about recreating scenes he had witnessed earlier or even posing photographs outright. After being exposed by other journalists for faking photographs, he would not stage photographs again. The next year, 1916, Britain introduced a policy known as Propaganda of the Facts, which banned staged or fake images, noting that they undermined Allied credibility.

Mr. von Dewitz said that many photographs from World War I that have become a part of the historical record do not actually show what the captions purport. “Faked pictures came from maneuvers, showed staged scenes from behind the front or came from movies,” he said. These images are still sometimes published to accompany stories about World War I.

During the war, questions about whether a photographer’s role was to illustrate reporting or to tell a visual story that could stand without words, and to what extent staging photographs was acceptable, were all being addressed for the first time.

“The answers in many respects informed the job photojournalists do today,” Ms. Roberts said. “The same debates still go on in context of a war zone – what may be different about conflicts now and the First World War is the question of whether the war itself is justified.”

Mr. Brooks, who eventually covered the Western Front, ended the war as a highly decorated photographer and went on to work as an official photographer to the Royal Family. But his career came to an abrupt end because of the emotional toll from his wartime work. Ms. Roberts said she believed that Mr. Brooks suffered from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, called shell shock at the time.

“There were a variety of incidents,” Ms. Roberts said. “He was arrested several times for drunkenness, then a scandal and then finally lost all his appointments and went bankrupt.”

Though Mr. Brooks died in the early years of World War II, today’s conflict photographers owe him and his colleagues a great debt.

“They really did lay the foundation of war photography today,” Ms. Roberts said. “When you look at the technology these photographers had access to, I think it is such a remarkable achievement. I really do wonder whether photographers who are covering the Syrian conflict or conflicts around the world today, if they could go back 100 years and take their present equipment with them – their digital camera and long-range lens and so on and so forth – and document the First World War, I wonder if they could do much better.”

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A World War I Photo Essay

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Haunting photos of World War I reveal how little Europe has changed in 100 years

The numbers reveal the horror of the Great War: Sixty-five million soldiers fought. Nine million killed in combat. Nearly 20 million wounded. 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, the conflict that reshaped Europe, redefined international power structures, introduced the U.S. as a global superpower and fundamentally changed the role government played in people’s everyday lives.

Photographer Peter Macdiarmid collected modern photos from around Europe and overlaid World War I-era images, giving a sense of how much–and how little–has changed since the War to end all Wars.

The town hall and belfry of Arras, France is seen from the main square in this archive photo of destruction wrought during WWI. The date of the photo is unknown, but the belfry was destroyed on October 21, 1914. Medieval tunnels under the city, which were expanded during the war, were pivotal in helping British forces to hold the city. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images. Archive photo by Roger Viollet/Getty Images

Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebieres in Albert, France stands at the center of this 1915 photo. The statue of the Virgin Mary on the belfry was damaged by a shell in 1915. 1915 photo by Apic/Getty images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

German airplanes at Place de la Concorde in Paris were wrecked by celebrating crowds on the day of the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine. November 18, 1918. 1918 photo by Maurice-Louis Branger/Roger Viollet/Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Members of a Royal Garrison Artillery of the British Army carry duck-boards across the frozen Somme canal at Frise, March 1917. 1917 photo by Lt. J W Brooke/IWM/Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A large crowd of men respond to a call by the War Office for married men aged between 36 and 40 to become munition workers. They gathered outside the Inquiry Office at Scotland Yard in London, England during World War 1. Undated archive photo by Paul Thompson/FPG/Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

In 1914, German troops sit on the steps of the Vareddes Town Hall, France, during the First Battle of the Marne. 1914 photo by Print Collector/Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

In Trafalgar Square, London, street urchins dressed as soldiers with paper hats and canes as guns stand to attention watched by a small crowd in November, 1914. Behind them is a notice declaring ‘The Need for Fighting Men is Urgent.’ 1914 photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Rheims Cathedral in Rheims, France is swallowed by a cloud of smoke during a bombardment in 1917. 1917 photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Soldiers stand outside the ruins of the railway station at Roye, Somme, France, in 1917. 1917 photo by Culture Club/Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Les Halles in the Belgium town of Ypres was the site of three major battles during World War I, and was almost completely devastated by bombing in 1915. 1915 photo by Hulton ARCHIVE/Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A French soldier walks through the ruins of Verdun, France after a German bombing In 1916. Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A vintage postcard shows the 4th King’s Own Royal Lancers Regiment marching into Tonbridge, England during World War One, circa March 1915. Postcard image by Popperfoto/Getty Images. 2014 photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Travis Daub is Director of Digital at PBS NewsHour.

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Collection Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures, 1914 to 1919

Pictures as propaganda.

U.S. newspaper coverage of World War I (1914-18) provides a unique perspective on wartime propaganda. The scope of articles and images clearly exhibits America's evolution from firm isolationism in 1914 to staunch interventionism by 1918. Once American soldiers joined the war, public opinion at home changed. And newspapers helped change it.

President Woodrow Wilson was reelected in 1916 with a campaign slogan: "He kept us out of the war." Newspapers from that year reflected this relative neutrality. On July 11, 1916, the first two pages of the New York Times were devoted to the visit of a German submarine carrying dyestuffs to Baltimore. There were photographs and stories of the crew—including a jovial interview with the captain, Paul Koenig, who spoke at length about his U-boat's on-ship library and Shakespeare. A December 10, 1916, photograph showed a German soldier mourning at a fallen comrade's grave. The dehumanization of Germans, a trademark of wartime propaganda, had not yet begun.

The president's eventual shift in wartime policy was mirrored in the newspapers. On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. Headlines in the New York Times and the Washington Post over the next few days declared: "Call for 'Republic' in Reichstag; America Will End Autocracy by Entering War, London Thinks—German People Learning—And Our Taking Up Arms Will Complete Their Enlightenment" and "Germans Lose Hope—Strong Demand Develops for 'Peace Without Annexation.'—Conservatives are in Fear—Campaign Against Wilson's Appeal to Teuton Democracy." The United States was optimistic that the declaration of war would compel Germany to lay down its arms. This optimism proved unfounded. By June, it was evident that Germany had no intentions of surrendering.

Patriotic propaganda, as well as a succession of censorship laws beginning with the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917, went into full swing. Photographs in the rotogravure sections showed scores of young men registering for the draft—the American flag visible in more than half the images. Photographs of German soldiers ceased, as did any stories from German or Austro-Hungarian perspectives. Countless portraits of a heroic President Wilson appeared. In June the war drive became a competition to see which state, or even which city, was the most patriotic. The New York Times posted graphics daily showing which states had contributed the most recruits and purchased the most war bonds. As intervention became imminent, newspapers ran fewer photographs from the battlefield and replaced them with pictures of parades and training regiments. Editorial policies became even more vigorously pro-American once American soldiers began to fight in the war.

Five headlines from June 1917 summarize various aspects of the war drive: "Columbia Calls"; "New Police Arms Awe Socialists"; "American Liner Thinks She Hit a U-Boat; Came Up Alongside, Cook Poured Soup on It"; "[Germany] Went Exultantly 'Goose-Stepping' Over a Neutral People"; and "Germans Gave Poison in Candy." These headlines exhibit the insistence of patriotic duty; the criticism of pacifism; and the fault, inferiority, and heartlessness of the Germans. In a matter of months, the United States had rejected isolationism and embraced its role as protector of democracy throughout the world. The American newspaper had embraced a new role as well—no longer just a reporter of news, but an agent of public opinion.

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World War I

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 10, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

World War I, also known as the Great War, started in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder catapulted into a war across Europe that lasted until 1918. During the four-year conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers). Thanks to new military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers had won, more than 16 million people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe—especially in the troubled Balkan region of southeast Europe—for years before World War I actually broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the Ottoman Empire , Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the Balkans (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand —heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Great War

Watch The Great War . Available to stream now.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of events: Austria-Hungary , like many countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia’s ally, France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or “blank check” assurance of Germany’s backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms as to make it almost impossible to accept.

World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed.

Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

The Western Front

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen ), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east.

On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege , using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege cannons—to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France, shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of inciting civilian resistance. 

First Battle of the Marne

In the First Battle of the Marne , fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading German army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris. The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back to the north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both sides dug into trenches , and the Western Front was the setting for a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years.

Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.

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World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works of art as “ All Quiet on the Western Front ” by Erich Maria Remarque and “ In Flanders Fields ” by Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae . In the latter poem, McCrae writes from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench warfare and exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes decimated by war.

The Eastern Front

On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland but were stopped short by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914.

Despite that victory, Russia’s assault forced Germany to move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had hoped to win under the Schlieffen Plan .

Russian Revolution

From 1914 to 1916, Russia’s army mounted several offensives on World War I’s Eastern Front but was unable to break through German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the bulk of Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime of Czar Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia’s simmering instability exploded in the Russian Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks , which ended czarist rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.

Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early December 1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by President Woodrow Wilson while continuing to engage in commerce and shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, it was increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of Germany’s unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships, including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and German U-boats sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S. ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania —traveling from New York to Liverpool, England with hundreds of American passengers onboard—in May 1915 helped turn the tide of American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign

With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915. The invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering 250,000 casualties.

Did you know? The young Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia , while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The First Battle of the Isonzo took place in the late spring of 1915, soon after Italy’s entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, also known as the Battle of Caporetto (October 1917), German reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy’s allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British and French—and later, American—troops arrived in the region, and the Allies began to take back the Italian Front.

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain’s Royal Navy was unchallenged by any other nation’s fleet, but the Imperial German Navy had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval powers. Germany’s strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal fleet of U-boat submarines.

After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German navy chose not to confront Britain’s mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.

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World War I Battles: Timeline

For four years, from 1914 to 1918, World War I raged across Europe’s western and eastern fronts after growing tensions and then the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria ignited the war. Trench warfare and the early use of tanks, submarines and airplanes meant the war’s battles were devastatingly bloody, claiming an estimated 40 […]

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World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes. Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany’s U-boats, the use of planes in World War I presaged their later, pivotal role in military conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903. Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions. During the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push Germany out of France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of 1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from. The Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The Morane-Saulnier Type L was used by the French, the British Royal Flying Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service and the Imperial Russian Air Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system in 1915. His “interrupter” synchronized the firing of the guns with the plane’s propeller to avoid collisions. Though his most popular plane during WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-engine bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long-range heavy bombers like Germany’s Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917) were used to strike cities like London. Their speed and maneuverability proved to be far deadlier than Germany’s earlier Zeppelin raids.

By the war’s end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft than the Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF, the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the navy or army. 

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne . The Allies successfully pushed back the German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany’s best hope of victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the months that followed.

The Harlem Hellfighters and Other All-Black Regiments

By the time World War I began, there were four all-Black regiments in the U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry. All four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War and American-Indian Wars , and served in the American territories. But they were not deployed for overseas combat in World War I. 

Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first African American troops sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance, removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the military formed two Black combat units in 1917, the 92nd and 93rd Divisions . Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September 1918. The 93rd Division, however, had more success. 

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With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and General John Pershing , commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial army. The 93 Division’s 369 regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters , fought so gallantly, with a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than any AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their heroism. More than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in World War I in various capacities.

Toward Armistice

By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts.

Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such a devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I “the War to End All Wars.” But the Treaty of Versailles , signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations , Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having believed any peace would be a “peace without victory,” as put forward by President Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points speech of January 1918.

As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II .

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.

The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the world’s deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of the technologies now associated with military conflict—machine guns, tanks , aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use. The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in warfare and remain in effect today.

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• Introduction & Top Questions
• Forces and resources of the combatant nations in 1914
• Technology of war in 1914
• The Schlieffen Plan
• Eastern Front strategy, 1914
• The strategy of the Western Allies, 1914
• The German invasion
• The First Battle of the Marne
• The war in the east, 1914
• The Serbian campaign, 1914
• The Turkish entry
• The war at sea, 1914–15
• The loss of the German colonies
• Rival strategies and the Dardanelles campaign, 1915–16
• The Western Front, 1915
• The Eastern Front, 1915
• The Caucasus, 1914–16
• Mesopotamia, 1914–April 1916
• The Egyptian frontiers, 1915–July 1917
• Italy and the Italian front, 1915–16
• Serbia and the Salonika expedition, 1915–17
• The Western Front, 1916
• The Battle of Jutland
• The Eastern Front, 1916
• German strategy and the submarine war, 1916–January 1917
• Peace moves and U.S. policy to February 1917
• The Western Front, January–May 1917
• The U.S. entry into the war
• The Russian revolutions and the Eastern Front, March 1917–March 1918
• Greek affairs
• Mesopotamia, summer 1916–winter 1917
• Palestine, autumn 1917
• The Western Front, June–December 1917
• The Far East
• Naval operations, 1917–18
• Air warfare
• Peace moves, March 1917–September 1918
• The Western Front, March–September 1918
• Czechs, Yugoslavs, and Poles
• Eastern Europe and the Russian periphery, March–November 1918
• The Balkan front, 1918
• The Turkish fronts, 1918
• Vittorio Veneto
• The collapse of Austria-Hungary
• The end of the German war
• The Armistice
• Killed, wounded, and missing

Who won World War I?

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World War I

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• Australian War Memorial - First World War 1914–18
• History Learning Site - The Dominions and World War One
• National Army Museum - The Story of Conscription
• The History Learning Site - World War One
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Holocaust Encyclopedia - World War I
• National Geographic Kids - World War 1 facts for kids
• Library of Congress - Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures, 1914 to 1919
• NeoK12 - Educational Videos and Games for School Kids - World War I
• Returned & Services League of Australia - The First World War
• Anzac Centenary - Australia’s Contribution to WWI
• World War I - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• World War I - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

What was the main cause of World War I?

World War I began after the assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand by South Slav nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914.

What countries fought in World War I?

The war pitted the Central Powers (mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey) against the Allies (mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, from 1917, the United States).

The Allies won World War I after four years of combat and the deaths of some 8.5 million soldiers as a result of battle wounds or disease.

Some 8,500,000 soldiers died as a result of wounds or disease during World War I. Perhaps as many as 13,000,000 civilians also died. This immensely large number of deaths dwarfed that of any previous war, largely because of the new technologies and styles of warfare used in World War I.

Four imperial dynasties—the Habsburgs of Austria-Hungary, the Hohenzollerns of Germany, the sultanate of the Ottoman Empire , and the Romanovs of Russia—collapsed as a direct result of the war, and the map of Europe was changed forever. The United States emerged as a world power, and new technology made warfare deadlier than ever before.

Recent News

World War I , an international conflict that in 1914–18 embroiled most of the nations of Europe along with Russia , the United States , the Middle East , and other regions. The war pitted the Central Powers —mainly Germany , Austria-Hungary , and Turkey —against the Allies—mainly France , Great Britain , Russia, Italy , Japan , and, from 1917, the United States . It ended with the defeat of the Central Powers. The war was virtually unprecedented in the slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused.

World War I was one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history. It led to the fall of four great imperial dynasties (in Germany , Russia , Austria-Hungary, and Turkey ), resulted in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and, in its destabilization of European society, laid the groundwork for World War II .

The last surviving veterans of World War I were American serviceman Frank Buckles (died in February 2011), British-born Australian serviceman Claude Choules (died in May 2011), and British servicewoman Florence Green (died in February 2012), the last surviving veteran of the war.

The outbreak of war

With Serbia already much aggrandized by the two Balkan Wars (1912–13, 1913), Serbian nationalists turned their attention back to the idea of “liberating” the South Slavs of Austria-Hungary . Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević , head of Serbia’s military intelligence , was also, under the alias “Apis,” head of the secret society Union or Death , pledged to the pursuit of this pan-Serbian ambition. Believing that the Serbs’ cause would be served by the death of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand , heir presumptive to the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph , and learning that the Archduke was about to visit Bosnia on a tour of military inspection, Apis plotted his assassination . Nikola Pašić , the Serbian prime minister and an enemy of Apis, heard of the plot and warned the Austrian government of it, but his message was too cautiously worded to be understood.

At 11:15 am on June 28, 1914, in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo , Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife, Sophie, duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip . The chief of the Austro-Hungarian general staff , Franz, Graf (count) Conrad von Hötzendorf , and the foreign minister, Leopold, Graf von Berchtold , saw the crime as the occasion for measures to humiliate Serbia and so to enhance Austria-Hungary’s prestige in the Balkans . Conrad had already (October 1913) been assured by William II of Germany ’s support if Austria-Hungary should start a preventive war against Serbia. This assurance was confirmed in the week following the assassination , before William, on July 6, set off upon his annual cruise to the North Cape , off Norway .

The Austrians decided to present an unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia and then to declare war, relying on Germany to deter Russia from intervention. Though the terms of the ultimatum were finally approved on July 19, its delivery was postponed to the evening of July 23, since by that time the French president, Raymond Poincaré , and his premier, René Viviani , who had set off on a state visit to Russia on July 15, would be on their way home and therefore unable to concert an immediate reaction with their Russian allies. When the delivery was announced, on July 24, Russia declared that Austria-Hungary must not be allowed to crush Serbia.

Serbia replied to the ultimatum on July 25, accepting most of its demands but protesting against two of them—namely, that Serbian officials (unnamed) should be dismissed at Austria-Hungary’s behest and that Austro-Hungarian officials should take part, on Serbian soil, in proceedings against organizations hostile to Austria-Hungary. Though Serbia offered to submit the issue to international arbitration, Austria-Hungary promptly severed diplomatic relations and ordered partial mobilization.

Home from his cruise on July 27, William learned on July 28 how Serbia had replied to the ultimatum. At once he instructed the German Foreign Office to tell Austria-Hungary that there was no longer any justification for war and that it should content itself with a temporary occupation of Belgrade . But, meanwhile, the German Foreign Office had been giving such encouragement to Berchtold that already on July 27 he had persuaded Franz Joseph to authorize war against Serbia. War was in fact declared on July 28, and Austro-Hungarian artillery began to bombard Belgrade the next day. Russia then ordered partial mobilization against Austria-Hungary, and on July 30, when Austria-Hungary was riposting conventionally with an order of mobilization on its Russian frontier, Russia ordered general mobilization. Germany, which since July 28 had still been hoping, in disregard of earlier warning hints from Great Britain, that Austria-Hungary’s war against Serbia could be “localized” to the Balkans, was now disillusioned insofar as eastern Europe was concerned. On July 31 Germany sent a 24-hour ultimatum requiring Russia to halt its mobilization and an 18-hour ultimatum requiring France to promise neutrality in the event of war between Russia and Germany.

Both Russia and France predictably ignored these demands. On August 1 Germany ordered general mobilization and declared war against Russia, and France likewise ordered general mobilization. The next day Germany sent troops into Luxembourg and demanded from Belgium free passage for German troops across its neutral territory. On August 3 Germany declared war against France.

In the night of August 3–4 German forces invaded Belgium. Thereupon, Great Britain , which had no concern with Serbia and no express obligation to fight either for Russia or for France but was expressly committed to defend Belgium, on August 4 declared war against Germany.

Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia on August 5; Serbia against Germany on August 6; Montenegro against Austria-Hungary on August 7 and against Germany on August 12; France and Great Britain against Austria-Hungary on August 10 and on August 12, respectively; Japan against Germany on August 23; Austria-Hungary against Japan on August 25 and against Belgium on August 28.

Romania had renewed its secret anti-Russian alliance of 1883 with the Central Powers on February 26, 1914, but now chose to remain neutral. Italy had confirmed the Triple Alliance on December 7, 1912, but could now propound formal arguments for disregarding it: first, Italy was not obliged to support its allies in a war of aggression; second, the original treaty of 1882 had stated expressly that the alliance was not against England .

On September 5, 1914, Russia, France, and Great Britain concluded the Treaty of London , each promising not to make a separate peace with the Central Powers. Thenceforth, they could be called the Allied , or Entente, powers, or simply the Allies .

The outbreak of war in August 1914 was generally greeted with confidence and jubilation by the peoples of Europe, among whom it inspired a wave of patriotic feeling and celebration. Few people imagined how long or how disastrous a war between the great nations of Europe could be, and most believed that their country’s side would be victorious within a matter of months. The war was welcomed either patriotically, as a defensive one imposed by national necessity, or idealistically, as one for upholding right against might, the sanctity of treaties, and international morality .

World War I in Photos: Global Conflict

• Alan Taylor
• April 27, 2014

At the start of the war, the largest of the European belligerents were all colonial powers—they had people and valuable assets stationed all over the Earth. These multinational interests, along with overseas alliances and the modernization of sea transport, are what put the "world" in World War I. Enemy nations attacked each other's colonies and fleets, and laborers and soldiers were recruited from colonized countries, and brought to the front lines. Allied countries—many former colonies—shipped soldiers and supplies into battle, coordinating with their European counterparts. And, despite the fact that the Western Front is the best-known theatre of World War I, the Eastern Front—the battle between the Central Powers and the Russian Empire—was equally devastating and consequential, resulting in millions of deaths and divisions that continue to affect the region to this day. In this entry, a look at some of the diverse nations and cultures involved in the war. I've gathered photographs of the Great War from dozens of collections, some digitized for the first time, to try to tell the story of the conflict, those caught up in it, and how much it affected the world. This is part 8 of a 10-part series on World War I .

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Annamese (colonial troops from French Indochina) disembarking at Camp Saint-Raphael. Over the course of the war, nearly 100,000 Indochinese were deployed in Europe, most as laborers, but several thousand also served in combat battalions. #

German Vice Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee's cruiser squadron, leaving Valparaiso, Chile, on November 3, 1914, following the Battle of Coronel. During the battle, von Spee's group defeated a Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, sinking two cruisers and killing more than 1,500 men. One month later, the British tracked down von Spee's group and started the Battle of the Falkland Islands, sinking or capturing all of the German ships, killing more than 1,800, including the German Vice Admiral. #

Russian prisoners of war. #

Cameroon-Company in German Southwest Africa during Word War I. #

Guns removed from the wreck of the SMS Konigsberg. The Germans recovered Konigsberg's ten 105-millimeter (4.1 in) quick-firing guns, mounted them on improvised field carriages, carried them away, and used them with great success as powerful field guns in their guerrilla campaign against the Allies around East Africa. #

Convoy of Spahis, North African light cavalry soldiers, in Francport, France, October 29, 1914. #

A Japanese siege gun brought up for the bombardment of Tsingtao (Qingdao), China in 1914. One of the detachment is receiving orders by telephone from the battery commander. Tsingtao was then a German port, under attack by the British and their allies, the Japanese. #

A railroad bridge near Riga, Latvia, demolished by Russians. German engineers built a makeshift walkway for the infantry. #

Dead Romanian soldiers near Kronstadt (now Stalin), Romania, in 1916. #

Russia entered World War I with an army which was massive but badly armed. Russia suffered quick body blows from Germany and went on to one disaster after another. It lost 1,650,000 men killed, 3,850,000 wounded and 2,410,000 prisoners before the 1917 revolution which ousted the tsar and ended Russia's part in the war. Here reservists, accompanied by relatives, are called up in St. Petersburg as the army was assembled. #

Gallipoli. Soldiers from the United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, India, Newfoundland, and more engaged Ottoman forces in the Dardanelles in 1915, seeking control of the strait to the Black Sea and the surrounding land. The campaign was disastrous for the Allies, who withdrew after suffering more than 50,000 deaths. #

Anzac, Gallipoli, October of 1915. The "Sphinx" or "Cathedral". The front tents were occupied by No. 1 Clearing Hospital. #

One of the few images taken at night during World War I. According to the existing caption it is taken near the Australian lines. The foreground is brightly lit up, with grass and scrub clearly visible. In the background, against a black sky, shell flares criss-cross the sky. #

An Australian bringing in a wounded comrade to hospital. Dardanelles Campaign, ca. 1915. #

The evacuation of the Bay of Suvla, Gallipoli campaign. #

Russian cossacks on horseback, ca 1915. #

Original caption: "Russian Troops in Flight. A remarkable photograph of a scene which followed the recent revolt of Russian troops on the Eastern front. The photo illustrates the first mad rush of the Slavic soldiers at a point of the line, where a cry was raises: 'The German cavalry have broken through.' With the raising of the cry the mad stampede started and not one of the runners paused for breath until he had put several miles between him and the firing line." #

Chinese laborers at a roll-call in France, during World War I. The coastal towns of China and Hong Kong, where Britain still had some influence, were the main areas from which Chinese laborers were recruited. Over 320,000 were recruited for service with the Allied Forces despite the fact that China was engrossed in her own domestic turmoil. #

Infantry lines North of Jerusalem, near Nebi Samuel, 1917. The Battle of Jerusalem ended up with British forces taking control of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire. #

An aerial view of Jerusalem, ca. 1917. #

The Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem, January 1918. This image was taken using the Paget process, an early experiment in color photography. #

New Zealand Mounted Riflemen guard a German contingent of prisoners, captured in Palestine, near Jericho, in 1918. #

The reading of a proclamation at the Tower of David in Jerusalem, December 11, 1917 -- two days after the Ottoman Army had surrendered and handed the city over to Allied troops. See this same location today on google maps street view. #

Japanese Red Cross station, operating near Tsingtao in 1915. #

Young Russian women, having won distinction at the front with decorations, are part of the staff of instructors to inspire new recruits. February, 1918. #

Annamese (French Indochinese) soldiers clean their guns in the district of the Marne. #

The Russians arrive in Marseille. France had asked Russia for help on the Western Front, and Russia responded by sending five Special Brigades -- nearly 45,000 soldiers -- in 1916. #

Indian soldiers who served during World War I in France. ca. 1915. #

A military camp for Australian soldiers in Egypt, during WWI. #

German and Austrian prisoners of war in Russia. A few of the more than 1,800,000 Central Powers forces captured on the Eastern Front during the war. #

Turkish heavy artillery at Harcira, 1917. Turkish troops with a German 105 mm light field howitzer M98/09. #

British troops landing to assist Japanese troops in capturing Tsingtao, China, from German forces, in 1914. #

Algerian soldiers in Europe during World War I. #

An Eastern Front battlefield, littered with the bodies of soldiers (possibly Russian or Serbian), killed in their shallow shell-scrapes. Each man has had his personal equipment removed and his M.91 Mosin-Nagant thrown to the side by advancing Central Powers troops. #

Ready for Russian rush - German machine guns devastated the masses of Russians rushing at them in attack. By the end of the first winter one Russian in four went into the field without a gun. Here German infantrymen aim their machine guns at the Russians from a trench on the Vistula River in Russia, in 1916. #

Soldiers, possibly Russian, going through a barbed wire entanglement. #

6th Australian light-horse regiment, marching in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, on the way to Mt. Scopus, 1918. #

Reims battlefield with fallen Senegalese soldiers. #

Slavo-British troops with Lewis guns. These troops were native Russians in British uniforms and commanded by the British. A British officer is on the right of the gunner in the photo. #

Austrian soldiers mete out punishment to Russian prisoners. Austria-Hungary took over a million prisoners of war during the Great War, the vast majority being Russians. Using POW labor, the Austro-Hungarians built large POW and civilian internment camps, usually near near major railway lines, which supported the transportation of prisoners and supplies. #

Serbian soldiers man a hilltop trench. #

A low flying German Fokker E.II 35/15, somewhere on the Eastern Front, ca. 1915. #

Landing of colonial troops in the harbor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, on June 13, 1917. Known as the Black Force by General Charles Mangin, French inspector general of colonial troops, these men were relied on by the French army in all the major battles of the war. #

Gas masks in use in Mesopotamia in 1918. #

General Kamio, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Army at the formal entry of Tsingtao, China, in December of 1914. The Germans had surrendered after a two-month-long blockade and a week-long siege, suffering the loss of 200 men. 4,700 German prisoners were sent to internment camps in Japan, remaining there for nearly six years. #

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